


The Dying Game

by Kalypso



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Murder, Reichenbach-Related, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty explains the object of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dying Game

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for my second Sherlockfic anniversary.
> 
> Somewhat to my surprise, it was in the voice of the character I like least, though it contains a tribute to one of my favourites. Thanks very much to [fengirl88](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88) for her advice on how to tackle it.

The _game_ , of course, is to make you do it of your own free will. Though not because you want to. No fun in _that_ ; it's easy to persuade someone intelligent that life's not worth living. But to talk you into suicide when you hope life's worth it after all - now _that's_ what I call winning.

Hope is very dangerous. Or was - Hope was my killer cabbie, remember? Oh, Jeff was an _artist_ of the dying game. The only disappointment was that his victims were so _ordinary_ he needed a gun to make them play. "Not cheating," he once told me. "It's not a real gun - if they'd just hold their nerve they'd find out." But no one did until you. That must have been _exhilarating_ , an opponent who was up for it! He would hardly have minded losing to _you_ , and winning would have been _extraordinary_. Only John _Watson_ cheated - his gun was real, and he hadn't even been invited. He won't cheat _me_ , he's just a pawn in my game. You may think you've taken him off the board, but you simply haven't _learned_ from last year...

I've refined the game now. No pills, no bombs, only tools you handed me yourself. Showing off, and finding yourself _friends_ , and finally, in this text, the fatal weapon: a rooftop at Barts.

**Author's Note:**

> By the time I learned that the 221b format had been defined as "221 words, the last one beginning with B", I had already found myself writing all my fic in this fandom in multiples of 111, so my version of it is "221 words plus an extra one beginning with B". In case this offends anybody, I offer an optional one-word cut: John from the second par.


End file.
